DVDebut: Barbara Kopple's doc, HOT TYPE, looks at The Nation's 150-year history

Readers of The Nation (TrustMovies is one of them), America's longest-running progressive magazine that celebrated its 150th birthday last year, will have no doubt already perused the very large, print copy of that anniversary issue. But they -- and I hope movie-goers and documentary lovers who've appreciated over the years the work of Barbara Kopple -- will not want to miss the new documentary, HOT TYPE: 150 YEARS OF THE NATION, that made the festival rounds in 2015 without securing a theatrical release and now comes directly to DVD, thanks to First Run Features.

Ms Kopple's movie -- the filmmaker is shown at left -- isn't quite hagiography (who doesn't like The Nation, except Republicans, of course), but it neither does it cast a critical eye. It celebrates, and rightly so, while giving us a pretty good look at the history of the magazine, its purpose, and especially at many of the people -- writers, editors, publishers (current and ex) and interns -- who labor for the cause.

We come away from the film with much less of a fully-digested meal than we did from reading that super-packed anniversary issue -- but still satisfied that we've sampled some tasty hors d'oeuvres, while meeting a few of the intelligent, interesting and talented folk we read regularly.

Chief among these are the Editor & Publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel (above) and (now) Executive Editor Richard Kim (below, who proves the most adorable and charming thing in the movie -- even if he does delay those deadlines). We spend some time with ex-Publisher and leading Nation light from earlier decades, Victor Navasky and writer Amy Wilentz, and especially with the group of young people who were interns the year that Kopple filmed.

The Nation treats its interns with respect and caring, and a number of them stay with (or return to) the magazine later for full-fledged jobs in journalism. While it proves great fun to finally put a face and body to the people we read regularly, Kopple also takes us from the current Texas drought to the earlier one we called The Dust Bowl, from Joe McCarthy to Scott Walker, from The Depression to the Occupy Movement, which is covered by Mr. Kim ("It's not the DNC, where it's all 'scripted'," he says.)

We hear from folk like Rachel Maddow who explains why The Nation is so important, and we learn a few things about how -- in this time of declining readership and print newspaper and magazine closings -- this particular example of journalism is managing to hold on. Reaching a new and younger audience is key, and the magazine is, like so many others, still trying to figure that out.

The movie, despite its political nature, is buoyant and engrossing as it pops all over the map -- off to Haiti three years after that major earthquake hit (above), and fighting against Republican cutbacks in North Carolina (below), where, in the film's most moving and emotional scene, one young woman explains how the people who "have" are working with and for the people who "have not," the wealthier supporting the less so.

We end by taking one of those semi-famous Nation ocean cruises, which look like fun (and are maybe consciousness-raising, too). I'd certainly go on one myself -- if I could afford it. Meanwhile, this fine little documentary hit the street on DVD a week or so back via First Run Features and is available now for purchase and, I hope, rental. (You can save it now to your Netflix queue, though why the company does not actually have it yet is anyone's guess....)

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American documentaries, Barbara Kopple, Haiti, HOT TYPE: 150 YEARS OF THE NATION, North Carolina, progressive films, The Nation magazine,

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Lee Kirk's ORDINARY WORLD provides a not-so-hot showcase for Billie Joe Armstrong

Character stupidity is a tricky thing. It can be used -- usually is -- for humor in movies, but it's a double-edged sword. A little goes a very long way. Too much stupidity can produce impatience then outright weariness in an audience, and when a character proves inordinately stupid, identification and caring go out the window for good. So it is with ORDINARY WORLD and its main character, a complete idiot named Perry, in the new movie originally known as Geezer from writer/director Lee Kirk (the filmmaker is shown below).

Clearly conceived to be a kind of showcase for the talents of singer/ songwriter Billie Joe Armstrong (shown on poster, above, and often below), the movie presents its hero, Perry, as someone goofy, sweet, appealing -- and one of the all-out stupidest characters to hit the screen in a long, long while. The movie begins well, with a musical evening that takes place some 20 years ago and features a nice opening song (by Armstrong). It ends well, too, with the expected feel-good finale we've been waiting for. In between, however, Perry's behavior regarding his wife, his kids, his brother, his home and his work is near-totally irresponsible and reprehensible in the extreme. All this makes the movie's "happy ending" seem completely unearned.

Perry is having a mid-life crisis, it appears, having given up the musical career he so much wanted to settle down with wife and family. But how he handles all this is beyond the pale.

Mr. Armstrong would appear to be a talented performer with a charming screen presence. And Kirk surrounds him with with class talent on all sides -- Selma Blair (shown above, right), as his wife; Judy Greer as an old girl-friend who suddenly appears in his life; and Fred Armisen and Kevin Corrigan as his band-mates/best friends -- none of  whom possess anything more than cardboard characters.

In fact, the one character who comes across as the most interesting and believable is the highly put-upon hotel concierge (Brian Baumgartner, above, left) from whom our idiot hero rents the poshest suite in the hotel then goes on to behave about as stupidly as possible. Armstrong's Perry literally does not make a single correct decision for the film's entire running time -- until those last ten or fifteen minutes.

Armstrong deserves a better showcase, as do the rest of the fine cast (that includes the always excellent Chris Messina), and audiences deserve a better movie (such as Mr. Kirk's previous one, The Giant Mechanical Man). If you can tolerate Ordinary World for more than the three or four decent songs it offers, well, you're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!

The movie opens today in New York City at the Village East Cinema and in Los Angeles at the Laemmle's Monica Film Center and simultaneously via VOD on all major platforms.

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"family" films, American independent cinema, bad-parenting movies, Billie Joe Armstrong, Lee Kirk, midlife crisis, movies about music, ORDINARY WORLD,

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Mick Jackson and David Hare's DENIAL proves a crackerjack courtroom thriller, British style

Courtroom drama -- from Witness for the Prosecution and Twelve Angry Men onward (and probably backward, too) -- so often deal with murder and retribution that when one such as DENIAL turns out to be all about a libel suit, the excitement level may appear to be rather low. Of course, if you count the approximately six million murdered during the Holocaust -- an event which the movie's antagonist (played with relish-y perfection by Timothy Spall, shown at left on poster, right, and two photos below) insists never happened, then that level gets a good goosing upwards.

When that movie also happens to have been written extremely well by David Hare and directed most efficiently by Mick Jackson (shown at left), the results are riveting. Mr Hare, one of Britain's finer living screenwriters and playwrights, has based his screenplay on an actual case tried in the British courts and brought by would-be historian David Irving against American historian, author and teacher Deborah Lipstadt, who in one of her books called Irving (among other things) a "Holocaust denier." He is all that and more (much less, actually).

Because Mr. Irving brought his suit against Ms Lipstadt and her British publisher in London, it must be tried according to British law, so for relatively sophisticated American audiences, at least, this will give the movie added interest and surprise. What is and is not allowed, and what this means to the defense and prosecution, make the film consistently interesting, and Mr. Hare has provided just enough of the personal and the detailed to keep us caring about all the protagonists without ever descending into the crass or melodramatic.

Playing Ms Lipstadt is that fine actress Rachel Weisz (above), who brings out her character's strength, sass and intelligence supremely well. Weisz makes us understand and appreciate Lipstadt's refusal to ever engage in debate with any Holocaust denier. Really: Would we also waste time debating with someone who insisted the earth is flat? She will however call these people out on their poorly perceived "facts."

Her two British attorney's -- one who does the behind-the-scenes work, played with stern but amused rigor by the increasingly versatile Andrew Scott (below and to the left of Ms Weisz); the other, who appears in court to do the fancy footwork necessary but also does his homework regarding background, played with great depth by the grand and capacious actor Tom Wilkinson (above) -- work hard to keep Lipstadt in check.

She wants to testify, and she wants Holocaust victims to testify, too (as do they themselves). As do we, initially, but one of the movie's strengths is how well it finally convinces us that this would not only be unnecessary but damaging to this particular case.

If you followed Lipstadt's career (that's she, below, with Ms Weisz) and/or the somewhat famous trial, you'll know the outcome here. Even so, the film succeeds, scene by scene, in keeping us glued. It also calls attention to the ever increasing times that our world is confronted with Holocaust deniers. In the words of a certain famous bread commercial, "You don't have to be Jewish..." to find this denial offensive, stupid and utterly reprehensible. As the Holocaust recedes in history and memory, we'll need consistent reminding to keep much of the world -- from Islamic states to the Neo-Nazis -- from either deliberately "forgetting" or twisting history to its own ends. Movies like this one provide that reminder, and they do it damned well.

From Bleecker Street and running 110 minutes, Denial -- after opening earlier in New York and Los Angeles, hits theaters in South Florida tomorrow, Friday, October 14. Here in Boca Raton, it plays the Regal Shadowood 16 and the Cinemark Palace 20.  Next Friday, the film expands to many more cities across the country. Click here then scroll down to find the theater and playdate nearest you.

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British cinema, courtroom dramas, David Hare, DENIAL, Holocaust deniers, Holocaust movies, Mick Jackson, the courtroom,

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Mike Plunkett's SALERO: all about Bolivia, its wondrous salt plain and the man who works it

What is it about salt -- well, we need it to survive, of course -- that also makes it such a humdinger of a subject for the documentary filmmaker? I am thinking, first, of Margot Benacerraf's Araya -- made some 57 years ago, but only able to be seen as it should be in its debut via Milestone Films in 2009 -- with its utterly breathtaking black-and-white cinematography and tale of the families who worked the salt flats of Venezuela a half-century ago. That film now has a kind of fascinating companion piece, a documentary called SALERO by filmmaker Mike Plunkett, that uses color cinematography of a salt flat in Bolivia very nearly as well, while telling the story of one of the last salt workers, the salero of the title, and his splintering family.

Mr. Plunkett (shown at right), I am guessing, must be familiar with Araya, for these two films have much in common, despite the 50-odd years of space between them. What a stroke of fortune brought the filmmaker together with his subject, Moises (below), the fellow whose family, down generations since his great-grandfather's time, has worked the salt flat for sustenance. Moises calls the flat "the most peaceful place on earth," and you'll find it hard to disagree with him once you've experienced it. His immediate family, however -- particularly his wife, Nelvi -- disagrees. She wants more: money, an urban life in Chile and ever a career of her own.

Further, the Bolivian government, under the direction of its leader, Evo Morales (whom we see and hear speak), is determined to join the 21st Century and so begins mining for lithium beneath the salt flat where Moises labors. While this will be good for the greater Bolivia (and we hope not too bad to the environment at large), it will greatly impact Moises, his labor, and his family.

Salero makes crystal clear the deep love and connection Moises has with his salt -- even when, as is now happening, the price of that salt descends into practically an unlivable depth. Still, the salero perseveres, creating a new way to harvest -- more quickly and more of -- that salt.

We see the little town of Colchani and meet a few of its people and even visit the larger and more thriving desert metropolis of Uyuni (far too big and impersonal to suit Moises). Along the way we watch and listen to Moises' interactions with his children, the most interesting and moving of which involves a morality tale of a board, hammer and nails, the hammering in and then removing of those nails becomes a metaphor for good and bad actions and their results.

We get some history along the way -- of Spain and Colonialism -- and we're happy to see Bolivia rising from near-third-world status into modernity. But everything has its price. For Moises, the price is so high as to make us wonder what is to become of him. Simultaneously heartbreaking and joyous, Salero puts us dead center into that thing we like to call "progress," then leaves us to sort it all out.

From Cinereach and running only 76 minutes, the movie will screen this weekend -- on Saturday, October 15, at 5:30 pm, as part of the annual Margaret Mead Film Festival at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Click here for more information and/or to purchase tickets. Where else can the film be seen? Well, Cinema Guild has the educational rights, so we are hoping that Salero will eventually get a VOD/home video release. I'll try to keep you updated as things progress....

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Bolivia, Documentries, industry, labors of love, Mike Plunkett, progress, SALERO, salt, the Environment,

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Andrea Arnold's AMERICAN HONEY--with an able cast of kids--hits Florida and elsewhere

Having enjoyed the work of British filmmaker Andrea Arnold (Red Road and Fish Tank), I looked forward to her latest movie and her first to be made here in America, AMERICAN HONEY. And for the first half of this long and rambling road trip that features a kind of very low-end Capitalism at work, I certainly did. Ms Arnold and her casting directors (Brit Lucy Pardee of Attack the Block) and Yank Jennifer Venditti (Lost River) have come up with a fine group of kids who play the group of kids that grounds the film. Each is odd and specific and real.

Ms Arnold, shown at left, has also gifted us with a beautiful and charismatic new actress named Sasha Lane (on poster, top, and two photos below) who will surely be seen again if she chooses to pursue this new career. Ms Lane has a face and body from which one does not want to remove one's eyes. And she is moment to moment so emotionally "there" that she helps fill this movie with life and meaning.

The rest of the cast includes the likes of  Shia LaBeouf (below, right) and Riley Keough (below, left) as the "leaders" of this pack of kids whose job it is to comb our country's south and southwest, selling magazine subscriptions. (Yes! This, at a time when print magazine are mostly dead and dying. But no one, neither the kids nor the would-be suckers to whom they're selling the subscriptions, ever brings up this fact.)

This is but the first of a host of believability problems the movie has. Yet so feisty and so much fun (for a time, at least) are these kids and their keepers that we let it pass. Ms Arnold's oeuvre so far would indicate that one of her favored themes is the resilience of teenagers, despite severe problems economically and with their irresponsible parents. So it is here.

This makes for some moving moments along the way, and Ms Lane is particularly adept at making us feel these without ever seeming to jerk us around. The movie and its plot, however certainly do. As writer and director, Arnold simply leaves out any logical consequences to our protagonists' behavior -- which grows more and more crazy as the movie progresses.

The filmmaker might have at least once thought to have the cops show up at one of the motels' the kids stay in and tell them to quiet down (if not haul them off to the nearest jail). These kids rob their marks of jewelry, too, but -- hey -- no problem. The most ridiculous scene arrives as LaBeouf brandishes and shoots off a gun and steals a car from some rich and, from what we can tell, rather powerfully-connected men. No problem. No consequence.

As the movie goes on and one for two hours and 43 minutes, this makes for quite a bit of blather and a near complete loss of credibility. If you buy into American Honey and stay there, you'll either have checked the logical portion of your brain at the door or will need to treat the movie as some kind of fantasy. We do get a couple of  hot sex scenes between Lane and LaBeouf (above), and a very interesting scene in which Lane attempts to play prostitute to a needy but decent oil rig worker.

There is good stuff here, intermittently, but I just can't help but wonder why Arnold didn't think out her movie with a bit more rigor and the kind of logic that would insist on a more honest and encompassing look at this entire situation. From A24 and having already opened in our major cultural centers, American Honey lands this Friday, October 14, here in South Florida in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, and Boca Raton theatres. Click here then click on GET TICKETS in the upper left-hand corner to find a theater near you.

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AMERICAN HONEY, Andrea Arnold, British-American movies, Capitalism, road trips, teen movies, teenage prostitution,

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With CHRISTINE, Campos, Shilowich and Hall offer a genuine, deeply-felt and honorable memorial to a talented, troubled young woman

Coming as it does on the heels of a documentary -- Kate Plays Christine -- that seemed to prove above all else how difficult and sometime pointless documentary film-making can be, the new narrative movie CHRISTINE succeeds beautifully in bringing to life a life that most of us (if we'd heard of Christine Chubbuck at all) knew only for the single act that "put her on the map."

In that regard, this movie is not unlike another excellent film that opened earlier this year, The Witness, that managed, at long last, to give us a look at Kitty Genovese in a manner that opened up her life into something much richer than the mere victim she'd seemed to have been down the decades since her murder. Rather than exploiting, both films honor their subject.

As directed by Antonio Campos (shown at left), written by Craig Shilowich (shown below) and

starring an actress who's currently as good as anyone performing in movies and TV -- Rebecca Hall (shown on poster, top, and further below) -- in what is, so far, the role of her career, Christine succeeds in creating a time (the mid-1970s), a place (a local TV station in Florida), and people (workers, friends, family, interviewees) that come together to form the kind of spot-on reality that narrative movies rarely get near.

This is the first attempt at screenwriting for Mr. Shilowich (shown at right), and as such it is not simply good, it's rather phenomenal.

The writer has packed in so much, and all of it germane, fascinating, and very warts-and-all in terms of not only Christine herself but of those around her. This allows us to see the positives and negatives clearly and to come surprisingly close to understanding who Christine was and how her surroundings worked with her personality to determine what happened.

Over the course of the film we learn so much about Christine -- everything from her virginity status to her relationships with her mother, boss, co-workers and especially the co-worker for whom she feels more than the normal attachment (played with his usual skill and subtlety by that fine actor, Michael C. Hall, below).

Via all of this, we come to understand Chubbuck as a terribly troubled yet talented young woman with rather heavily under-developed social skills. And so very good is Ms Hall is delineating all this that we quickly and hugely feel the embarrassment and naivete of this woman as she tries to work her way around and through various situations. Hall handles all of this so skillfully than not a moment registers as false or overdone. She keep us in her corner, even as she allows us to understand how that corner is so thoroughly fencing her in.

Hall has a large and often glowing face, but here she keeps the muscles in that face tightly coiled. Only when she is putting on the charming social-service puppet shows for the children she works with does she relax into those "puppet" roles to leave her constrained self behind. What a joy it is to see her suddenly liven and embrace! (Christine is not the kind of movie our "Oscar" Academy usually embraces, but I dearly hope its members gird up their loins and take a look, because quite a number of people involved with it deserve nominations.)

Around halfway along this two-hour film, my spouse noted aloud, "This does not seem like a movie." (More and more often these days, Spousie uses the word movie to double for the word fake. After we've watched something or other, he'll shrug and exclaim, "Yeah -- it's a movie.") Regarding Christine, he is so right. This is about as real as it gets. Mr. Campos, a director whose past work (AfterSchool and Simon Killer) I've enjoyed, does wonders here, using a documentary style abetted by what seems like a near-perfect production design, including period costumes, hair styles and sets.

The manner in which Campos and Shilowich and their actors capture the little TV station and its workings (above) may but you oddly in mind of its polar opposite, that glossily entertaining cable series, The Newsroom. (Or even better, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, which is used quite cannily and sadly here.) Campos' entire cast -- which include Tracy Letts (below, right) as Christine's adversarial boss, J. Smith-Cameron as her alternately helpful and trying mom, Maria Dizzia as her best friend who has her own necessary ambitions, and John Cullum, as the TV station's money man -- is first rate. There are no villains here, and no heroes, either. Just people living and working as best they can -- and doing a pretty good job of it, considering the circumstances.

In yesterday's New York Times there a fine article about Rebecca Hall and the making of the film, in which it comes out that Christine's brother refuses to see it because he feels that it is exploiting his sister. I wish he would reconsider, for this film is anything but exploitative. Christine is a movie that, during and after viewing, makes you look at things differently and understand them better. That's a tall order and it is served up here with intelligence, kindness and caring -- as expertly as you could wish.

The movie, from The Orchard and running 119 minutes, opens this Friday, October 14, in New York City exclusively at Film Forum. Elsewhere? Sure hope so, and as soon as further playdates becomes available, I'll post them here.

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American independent cinema, Antonio Campos, CHRISTINE, Craig Shilowich, fact-based films, Florida on film, journalism, life being lived, newsrooms, Rebecca Hall,

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Film Review: The Nice Guys (2016)

Copyright: Warner Bros. Pictures

This film tries to follow in the footsteps of those comedy films which try to extract the hardboiled detective and place it into the weird and wacky world of show business. While they’re funny, they also utilize real violence to create a mix most similar to a black comedy, but not quite there when it comes to satire or cynicism (which these lack).

Every couple of years, one or more movies like that come along and replace the previous reigning king. That is why Get Shorty, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and other ones like it always tend to stick around for a somewhat prolonged period of time, mostly by being inflated in value mainly by the audience which digs the violence-fame-jokes mix-up.

The Nice Guys is a perfect representative of this trend and like most, it tries to innovate the form at least a little. In this case, there are two hardboiled detectives, here private investigators, who are working on a case of a missing porn actress in LA in the late 1970’s. 

 First, one is really a classic thug PI and is played by a very aged and worn Russell Crowe while the other is an alcoholic dandy (yes, this 19th-century expression does really apply to him) played by increasingly uninteresting Ryan Gosling.

They set off to get to the bottom of the case while they encounter a colorful range of character, most of whom either hurt them or the opposite happens. Directed by Shane Black, it’s basically Kiss Kiss Bang Bang all over again, only Robert Downey Jr. got transformed into an overweight Crowe and a boring Gosling.

The plot is convoluted and fails to make any impact on the viewer, especially when it mutates into a lame conspiracy that just goes nowhere even in the most basic terms of showing the key villain and their henchmen. As if Black struggled with the exposition, mainly which character should he show for how long, the film tries its best to be dynamic and fun but manages to do this only in snippets.

The rest of the movie is dragged down by weird side-stories and unclear goals of anyone involved, especially when the daughter of Gosling’s character enters the plot as an important element. Here, Shane struggles to even adequately present her age, interest, and ultimate motivation, aside from the most obvious of protecting her dad, even though she is (apparently) 13-years old.

Elements like this are all over, making the film strange in a not-that-good way. Essentially, every big scene is a gamble where the viewers can get a funny interaction, something random that likely includes Gosling screaming in a fake high-pitched voice or just something that tries to develop a backstory and mystery but ends up looking weak and anemic. Even a few dream sequences that come completely from the left field and seem like they belong in movies like John Dies at the End also just drag on pointlessly.

Being a Hollywood private detective is certainly very interesting, but The Nice Guys make it look like something boring, strange and tedious.

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action, comedy, Thriller,

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The October Sunday Corner with Lee Liberman THE LAST KINGDOM -- How England Was Made

"If you were alive in 880, the word 'England' would mean nothing," says Bernard Cornwell, author of "The Last Kingdom," his chronicles of Saxon history and the basis for the TV series from BBC now streaming on Netflix. After Rome fell, England splintered into unaffiliated fiefdoms; King Arthur, his Knights, and Tristan and Isolde made it out alive in our imaginations from the dark of ancient Briton. Various Germanic tribes called Saxons invaded in the 5th century. By the 9th, when the story of Uhtred the warrior (above) and King Alfred begins, the Viking Danes had moved in on the Saxon kingdoms and were picking them off -- all except Alfred's in Wessex, where brawn would be outmaneuvered by brains.

Early in that war the Danes had Alfred pinned down in several square miles of swamp until 878 when he called up swords from all over England and inflicted a decisive defeat on joint Danish armies. Alfred's descendants regained the 3 Northern kingdoms of Mercia, East Anglia, and Northumbria, fulfilling his dream of uniting England under one king (and one God -- Alfred was pious). His foresight and strategic win in 878 (Season 1's conclusion) led historians of the 1500's to call him "the Great". Without Alfred, England might now be Daneland and Danish our mother tongue.

Cornwell (shown below) uses his Saxon adventures to tell the "incredibly untaught " story of how England was won, and he spins good hero in the vein of Horatio Hornblower or loose-cannon Richard Sharpe. (His many historical novels include the Napoleonic era Sharpe tales starring Sean Bean in a lengthy PBS film series.) Cornwell's Saxon chronicles are masterful water and land battle epics -- though you have to dig out from under sword and shield to piece together historical narrative or gain context. Still, it's for exposure to King Alfred and his constructs of civilian order that the TV series has food value, unless gritty battlefield action and strategy is your thing. Then the novels and TV series are total feasts. Season 2 of "The Last Kingdom" is filming now (Series 1 filmed in Wales, Denmark, and Hungary). It contains characters who were real contemporaries of Alfred -- a game of thrones anchored more in history than white-walkers and dragons.

Cornwell's birth father, William Oughtred, dated his lineage back to Northumbria, whence comes our fictional hero Uhtred (Alexander Dreymon, American Horror Story alum), a swaggering, insolent hero born Saxon, bred Dane, accepted nowhere. Through Uhtred the warrior we come to know Alfred's life and his descendants' effort to unite England. Uhtred is a Saxon nobleman's young boy when the Danes capture his homeland of Northumbria; Uhtred Sr. is killed by Dane Earl Ragnar and the boy is taken and raised happily by Ragnar (Peter Gantzler, below, with young Uhtred). Uhtred asks Ragnar why the Danes keep coming to Britain. Ragnar explains that Denmark is wet, harsh, and the ground is so flat and sandy you can't grow a fart. We are here to grow. If you want land and wealth, you have to take it.

As he nears maturity, Uhtred sees his Danish home upended by the murder of Ragnar's family, leaving him and Brida (Emily Cox), a Saxon girl also raised with Uhtred, on the run from Danes who blame him for the murders. The pair make their way to Ubba, a menacing Viking wild man (Norwegian Rune Temte, below) to find that Uhtred's rumored infamy had reached Ubba's ears, making him their mortal enemy. They stay on the run.

Uhtred and Brida head south to Wessex, the only kingdom that remains in Saxon hands. Uhtred wants to recoup his Northumbrian ancestral home and title from the invaders but as a youth he is, in his own words, arrogant and stupid, incapable of ingratiating himself with Alfred (the competent David Dawson, below). Alfred, however, sees a resource in him to learn the ways of the Danes -- they intend to use each other.

When Uhtred and Brida meet the soft-spoken but ruthless leader, we and they get our first glimpse of Alfred's power -- his use of the written word. ("When a man dies, if nothing is written, he is soon forgotten.") His inner sanctum (below) is filled top to bottom with handwritten scrolls describing his actions, findings, translations, and scholarship. (Later Guthrum, a Danish occupier, brandishes one of Alfred's scrolls: "This magic is words without sound -- voices without people; I am going to learn how to use this magic.") Alfred is driven by the order he finds in ancient scholarship, the church, and the law. Uhtred could care less; he thinks Alfred is a pious weakling. But by watching the relationship develop between the paganized Saxon action man and the devout, intellectual king until Uhtred becomes strategist and military leader, you gain the essence of the story.

Cornwell is described by peers as a brilliant writer of battles with "an unflinching approach to bloodshed" (Daily Mail), but domestic relations is not his thing. The TV series succeeds better than Cornwell's first two books in investing the saga with relationships that make you halfway care, while providing tension between Christian and pagan. Aelswith, Alfred's whiny Queen (Eliza Butterworth, below) never stops whispering to Alfred that Uhtred must die because of his heathen ways.

Uhtred has two lovers and a wife in the first season and his women make their mark. Awesome Brida is a brazen warrior and prickly fem; Charlie Murphy's Iseult (below) mesmerizes Uhtred and the camera with a quiet intensity that she also brings to Rebellion, a 4-parter about the Irish Easter Uprising in 1916 (also streaming on Netflix).

The BBC series is executive-produced by two familiars --Gareth Neame and Nigel Marchant of Downton Abbey. A third carry-over is composer John Lunn whose score for Kingdom is unimaginably different from DA; Faroese musician Eivor adds unearthly vocals that get one's pagan up. (She hales from the Danish Faroe Islands which have old folk traditions.)

Although Cornwell's novels and the series introduce King Alfred as the foil to the warrior's ambition to recover his birthright, it is Dreymon's handsome Uhtred whose life-force drives the action. We are due for a full-on treatment of Alfred because his achievements were so foundational to modern civics. Alfred created defense and tax systems, borough organization, representative rule, a legal code; his center of scholarship in Oxford became Oxford University. Many millennia and despotic kings later, his organizational achievements became touchstones during the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the Victorian era and onward to the present. Perhaps Alfred's good governing will make it into the TV series if renewals are forthcoming, but for now one hopes that Uhtred gets his land back and hangs up his sword.

Note: the Scandinavian seafaring pirates were called Vikings but were referred to as Danes when living in England.

The above post was written by Lee Liberman, 

our greatly valued, monthly correspondent

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9th Century Britain, Bernard Cornwell, British history films, British TV series, historical epics, THE LAST KINGDOM,

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